Beginning early in the twentieth century, Constance Smedley published forty books, about twenty of them novels and the rest plays, children's books, and non-fiction including a polemical feminist manifesto and a book of memoirs. Her writing was only one aspect of her career: through her theatrical ideals, teaching, and practice (writing and directing plays and pageants, not all of them published) it connected with her work in the visual arts: embroidery, illustration, and social movements.